


Purgatory's Alpha

by Unforth



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alphas are Exiled, Alphas are Werewolves, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bottom Castiel (Supernatural), Civilian Pilot Castiel (Supernatural), Coming Untouched, Dubious Consent, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt/Comfort, Injured Castiel (Supernatural), Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multiple Orgasms, Omega Castiel (Supernatural), Overstimulation, Purgatory, Rimming, Size Kink, Society is Prejudiced Against Alphas, Sort Of, There's Also Non Wolf Sex, There's Wolf Sex, Top Dean Winchester, Unrealistic Sex, Virgin Dean Winchester, Werewolf Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-14 21:39:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19281697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforth/pseuds/Unforth
Summary: Castiel thinks he's a dead man when he crash lands in the alpha sanctuary called Purgatory. What he doesn't expect is two of the alphas, Dean and Benny, to take him in and protect him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ...idek...
> 
> Ignore the title. If I didn't have to put something in there I'd leave the damn thing blank. I almost titled this, "Right Fuck I Need a Title."
> 
> This is completely written (I live wrote it on the Profound Bond discord server) and I'll be breaking it in to probably three chapters? 
> 
> Oh and for setting...I was kinda imagining a world where biotech and reproductive tech is roughly on par with our world, but that a lot of other tech is more like 30s and 40s tech. It probably doesn't make tons of sense but I wasn't worried tons about world building. There was porn to write.

_...shit, shit, shit, shit... _

Squeezing his eyes shut against panic -  _ "Novak! Always keep your eyes on where you're flying!"  _ \- Castiel managed a hysterical laugh imagining how his flight instructor would react to hear his internal monologue of swear words. Cas Novak, flying prodigy, never a cross word, calm under pressure...totally losing it. Closing his eyes couldn't possibly make his situation worse. He didn't need to see to know he was utterly, completely fucked.

The second engine sputtered, stalled, and burst into flame.

Fricken fantastic.

He was  _ even more _ fucked.

_ No...fucked is fucked is fucked, and I was doomed the minute the navigational equipment went out. All the rest has just been icing on this layer cake of how screwed I am. _

The first branch slapped the wing as the biplane plummeted into the canopy. Birds squawked and took to the air to avoid him. Castiel had never envied them more. Wood cracked and the light plastic frame shattered, wings tearing free. Castiel tucked his head under his arms, drew his knees up, did his best to protect himself, when the first burst of pain tore through him. He couldn't see what had happened, didn't know where he was hurt, couldn't imagine where the hell he'd ended up, all he knew was that he was falling, falling, falling, and he didn't think he'd ever find his way back up after this one.

_ Oh well...I had a good run... _

_ Fuck that! There was so much more I wanted to accomplish, so much more I wanted to do with my life, and now-- _

His head slammed the instrument panel, his vision flashed red and black and sun-dazzled green, and he knew no more.

Castiel was no more.

* * *

 

It was dark.

_ Ow... _

Surprise trumped even agony in the first wonder if waking up. He wasn’t dead. How utterly remarkable. Blinking, seeing nothing whether his eyes were opened or closed, Castiel tried to move.

Oh...ohhh...there was the pain.

Jolts of hot agony pulsed up his left side, down to his toes and his fingers. He was alive, though judging by how much living hurt he wasn't sure how long that would last. 

_ If I stay here, I'll probably bleed out. _

His vision pulsed the darkness red in time to his heartbeat, diffusing pain through his body so thoroughly that he couldn’t tell where he was hurt, how serious it was, how doomed he was.

_ If I move, I might make my injuries worse. _

_...I’m not sure how much worse these injuries can get. If they’re going to kill me regardless, better dead trying to survive then lying back and giving up. _

With that thought driving him, Castiel laboriously rolled to his belly and groped forward. His right arm was responsive, his left not; he focused on the pads of his fingers, pushed his awareness toward his touch, toward his senses, away from the excruciating waves throttling him. 

_ Where am I? What am I touching? What happened after my plane went down? _

Cold.

Hard.

Solid.

Unforgiving.

Stone, he thought. He blinked, tears streaming unheeded down his cheeks, tentative fingers seeking...seeking...and finding a divot in the uneven rocky ground. He dug his fingers into the negligible crack and pulled, muscle knotting. An agonized noise twisted from him, his voice wrecked and unrecognizable. His nails ground on stone as he strived for the strength to lift his body _.  _ Noise morphing into a wail of effort and agony, he tensed his hand, and moved.

Maybe an inch or four.

_ Awesome. Perfect. I just have to do that again...and again...and again... _

It was a daunting prospect - a horrifying one - but he did it, because he had to live, because what else could he do but try his absolute hardest? Let no one, none of his classmates, none of his family, say Castiel gave up. Let them find his remains stretched and contorted to show he'd  _ tried _ .

_ Not that any of them would care. What more appropriate fate for the omega who refused to know his place? _

_ No. That’s not fair. Gabriel will care. Gabriel will try to find me. I have to try to help, have to create a signal, or fix the plane, or something. _

_ Anything. _

_ I have to  _ move _. _

Reach forward.

Grasp.

Pull.

Reach forward.

Grasp.

Pull.

Gasping in agony, inch by laborious inch, Castiel dragged himself forward. He blinked against tears, clenched his jaw around sobs, saw red and bursts of white against the unrelenting backdrop of darkness, felt as the skin and flesh wore, little by little, from the pads of the fingers of his right hand. 

At least he could still  _ use _ his right hand. His left was dead weight.

_ All of me will be dead weight if I can’t find help. _

Warmth glowed against his strained palm.

Castiel blinked against his pain, blinked against the single, monolithic, obsessive thought that he had to keep moving, and his vision cleared to see...brightness.

Sunlight.

A circle of blue, green and brown was framed amidst the dark, casting shadows over the stone surrounding him. The colors were oversaturated to his dark-accustomed eyes, but the scent of fresh air proved it must be the outdoors.

He'd reached...the mouth of a cave?

How had he ended up in a cave?

Maybe the plane had broken through the ground into a cavern when it fell. Maybe he’d woken up before and found sanctuary, but his injuries destroyed his memory. Maybe he’d...maybe he’d…

_...maybe wasting energy on supposition is pointless. _

Chest heaving with effort, rattling his senses with every exhale, blasting him with ripples of agony, Castiel crested the mouth of the cave to see the world beyond, and he stopped.

He had so little to give, so little he could do. If he wasted that effort on futile attempts at movement, he'd be doomed. He had to focus - assess - he had to--

"Aw, fuck!"

He had to hear.

Sound descended around him, enveloped him, and he struggled to concentrate and sort the sounds into meaning, could hardly associate the noises with his blurry, dazzled vision of the world beyond the cave.

Metal clanged.

Stone flaked gritty.

Wind swept through trees.

Birds shrieked.

People...animals?... _ something _ breathed and shouted and snarled.

Forms before Castiel thrashed, moved, came together and fell apart. One must be human, had shouted the swear word, was shouting something now in a lilting southern accent that altered his tones just enough from the clipped northern dialect that Castiel was used to that he could hardly decipher the sounds into words.

"Benny--" Garbled yells, instructions, broke into disjointed syllables around heavy breathing. "--fuck, fuck, fuckity--" The sight before him was a focus outside his pain, his injuries, the prison of his broken body, a truly welcome distraction. Castiel stared.

Two men wielded improvised weapons, circling, fighting back to back, battling off…

...they were people, Castiel thought, but hunched, twisted, garbed in fragments of cloth and fur, teeth bared in snarls, hair a snarled mass of filth, skin color impossible to tell under the dirt coating them. By contrast the two standing were...still tattered, still a mess, but upright, dressed in worn but recognizably modern outfits, smudged with dirt but not so gone to humanity that they'd lost the will to cleanse themselves.

One, in a leather jacket, swinging...one of the blades of Castiel's propeller?...met Castiel's eyes.

"Get back in the cave, you stupid son of a bitch!" That was who had sworn. His voice was deep, accent lilting, lovely, somehow commanding.

But Castiel couldn't have retreated back into the cave if his life depended on it. Moving forward had been excruciating; turning around was impossible.

The broken, inhuman, horrifically human creatures turned, simultaneously, to stare at Castiel and leer.

His life might depend on it.

_ I crawled out here because I had to. Surely, I can... _

Castiel tried to retreat but something tore and his vision blanked in pain. A scream tore from his throat. The smell of blood, his own, pungent and sweet, assaulted his nose.

"Aw, hell," southern accent’s voice succored him, supported him, grounded him. A whiff of tang, sharp and alien, wafted into his awareness.

A shadow fell over Castiel.

"Alright you fuckers, you want the omega? You gotta get through me!"

The scent intensified, powerful, stirring something nauseating in Castiel's gut, something different, something weirdly familiar, something…

_...not an omega… _

_...not a beta... _

...something impossible. 

The shadow shifted, danced, the man roaring as his weapon clanged. Castiel flopped to his back, staring up at the silhouette of the stranger inexplicably come to his defense. The propeller made a hell of a weapon, the man shifting expertly from offense to defense, strike and parry, heaving, grunting, struggling, repelling the attackers. Sweat soaked his hair, every movement gusting musk into Castiel's nose.

Alpha scent.

Alpha musk.

He couldn't be an alpha.

No one was an alpha, outside of the sanctuaries.

The certainty of it twisted in Castiel's gut, plunged through his awareness. His determination, his fear, even his pain fell away in a sudden, all-consuming cold.

The man was  _ definitely  _ an alpha.

So this must be an alpha sanctuary.

_ Better if I'd died in the crash. _

He was doomed.

Fingers like claws grabbed at Castiel's head; his defender swang the propeller down, severing arm from body, the grip falling away as the human - the alpha, hell, no wonder they'd seemed bestial - howled and fell back. Sounds - they might have been words but in no language Castiel knew - grunted between the creatures, and the sound of battle vanished, replaced by scurrying feet, rustling leaves, the grind of rocks shifting on rocks.

The shadow remained, a blackness in the cave mouth. 

"Fuckin' finally," muttered the man, relief strangely human, normal, familiar.

_ But don't be fooled. He's an alpha. He's not like me, not like the omegas and betas I've known. Though he looks like a man, he's as much a monster as the others. _

"There'll be more, brother," replied another voice, accent thicker, but with the other noises fading Castiel could understand.

"There are always more," said the first man grimly, propping the propeller against the cave wall. "Omega - you okay? The fuck were you thinking, coming out here?" He reached a grimy hand toward Castiel.

Castiel flung himself back, rolling down the incline deeper into the cave, pain bursting with every slam of aching flesh on unforgiving stone.

"Stay away from me!" he gasped.

Black shadows flitted over Castiel's vision, creatures he thought, or bats, or...no, just illusion, pained induced hallucination, as his vision narrowed to a single bright point at the end of an infinitely long tunnel.

_ The way back to my old life, my real life, gone forever. _

"Have it your way," said the alpha casually. "No skin off my back if you kick the bucket. Or I could let those fuckers out there have you."

_ Should have _ ... Castiel swallowed. Copper tang coated his mouth, blood and pain and uncertainty and fear a sickening mixture. 

"What was that?"

"Should have let me die," Castiel whispered, raspy, voice dry. He struggled to breathe, struggled to adjust himself to a less painful position, but every movement was agony, and no position was less painful.

"Still can, if you'd prefer. An omega, here? More trouble then you're fuckin' worth. Shoulda left you in that damn wreckage. Let the unwashed masses have their way with you. Or, if you keep floppin' 'round like a beached fish, you can bleed out right here if you prefer."

"No..." That wasn't right. Vague thoughts, that he had to survive, had to fight, had to prove himself, flared like fire through Castiel's guts. 

He couldn't give up.

He couldn't give himself to these alpha beasts.

He had to…

...had to...

"Or," the alpha said, dragging the word out as if tasting it, "you can let my bro Benny and I take care of you."  _ Take care of me? Is that what you'll think it is? I won't let you take me, alpha. _ "Treat your wounds. Keep you alive. Hell, if things go well, maybe we can all bust out of purgatory."

Purgatory.

One of the worst of the so-called sanctuaries, second only to Hell itself.

_ I'm in purgatory. _

_ I'm an  _ omega _ in purgatory. _

_...and this alpha wants to leave here? _

_ Who wouldn't want to leave here? _

Panting, blinking away pain, Castiel tried to center himself. He had to think. He had to function. He had to take what useless fragments of information he had, assemble them to some kind of whole, figure out a game plan...

He tried to sit up. Something within him snapped. Blood bubbled up his throat. Tears, or blood, or his very soul blotted out his vision.

"Oh, God," he sobbed, collapsing boneless to the cruel ground.

"Fuck," snapped the alpha, his voice fading, growing distant. "He's flatlining on us - bro, you got a handle on thing things out there?"

The cold against Castiel's face - the ground? The wall? The tunnel to eternity? - felt nice.

"Do what you gotta do, chere."

His vision was black. 

"Don't you die on me."

His skin was a fire of oversensitized pain.

"You're my ticket outta this shit hole."

His mouth was awash with filth.

"Keep breathing, damn it."

His nose was swamped by musk and dirt and blood and...

"Fuck me."

...and a citrus tang, a mesquite smokiness, a burgeoning scent like wood polish, and...

_ That's him. _

Hands pulled him, arranged him, tugged at him, pain fading toward oblivion.

_ The alpha...he smells nice... _

Castiel passed out with a smile on his face.

* * *

 

A breath sighed out of Castiel and he awoke, warm and comfortable. Something crackled, a familiar sound he couldn't place. Sharpness dug into side, and he shifted. Something crunching around him like chips breaking, or like...

_ Wait, where am I? _

He opened his eyes.

The cave glowed yellow and orange, the crackling coming from a modest fire that smoked and sputtered. Gray diffused through the room, pungent with the wetness of the wood, drifting up into the shadows high above. Castiel lay on a bed of dead leaves, cushioning him against the hard chill of the rocky ground. A dark trail marked where Castiel had pulled himself out of the cave the first time he'd woken up, a wake of pungent, sour dried blood.

He didn't panic.

He didn't immediately attempt escape.

He lay still, wounds throbbing, and looked around, and assessed.

No one else was present but evidence showed the cavern lived in. A pile of twigs, sticks, some thick enough to be logs, rested across from Castiel, ready to be fed to the fire. Stone and wood tools were arrayed neatly on a section of clear floor. The sides of a vessel, made of nothing Castiel could identify by sight, beaded with moisture. The room was a dead end, walls curved and water smoothed, the remnant of some long-gone waterway that had worked through the stone only to evaporate and leave behind the comfortable bowl in which he lay. 

Castiel's body ached. His pants were mostly intact, but his chest was bare, the remains of his shirt shredded and wrapped around whatever injury incapacitated his left arm. Every breath made his chest ache. He'd never been severely injured, so he could only guess the extent of the damage to his body - bruised ribs, torn skin, broken bones, ripped blood vessels. The specifics hardly mattered compared to the agony. His senses were dulled, muted; sounds were a little too soft, smells a little too distant, colors a little too muted. He wasn't sure if that was caused by his injuries, or the depth of the cave, or some quirk of purgatory. He didn't feel hurt as much as he had when he first woke up, but he had no idea if that was a good sign or a bad sign for his recovery.

_...how can I ever recover, from any of this? _

A scuffing sound alerted him to someone making their way toward his sanctuary. Putting his good hand beneath him, he tried to shift, to face that way, to maybe prepare some kind of defense should whoever or whatever approached proved a threat, but the least movement sparked the agony he'd thought passed. Whimpering, he fell back against his leafy blanket.

"Quit tryin' to move, dumb ass," grumbled the leather jacket-wearing alpha as he emerged into the light. His cheeks were ruddy in the firelight, and in another setting - on a street in Chicago on a sunny day, the scent of spring flowers on the air, a cool breeze coming in off the the lake, maybe, or on the runway at school with the buzz of the planes circling over head, or, or, or...

Wait, what had he been thinking?

"Better," the alpha smiled, showing surprisingly good teeth. 

Oh right.

If Castiel had encountered the man someplace else, anywhere else, he'd have thought him handsome.

At least until he scented the unmistakable stink of alpha on him.

_ It wasn't...isn't...a stink, though...he smells good. Really good. Everyone says alphas smell bad, but... _

A strange scent wafted from him, and for a moment Castiel thought he'd found that promised fetor, but the source resolved as the alpha set down what he was carrying. Fish spilled onto the floor, slapping wet against stone and each other. 

"Found a good lake," grunted the alpha, gesturing to the catch. "And Benny found another willow. Try to rest easy, we'll have more medicine for you soon."

Medicine.

That's why Castiel didn't feel like death any longer.

The alpha...the two alphas?...had made Castiel a painkiller, somehow, someway.

_ Why _ ?!

_ They’re alphas. I’m an omega. If they drove off the others, if they’re aiding me now, there can only be one reason - the only reason - the only thing that motivates alphas. _

_ They want an omega, to knot, to breed, to use, to keep. _

_...except, if that’s the case, why not just...do that? _

_ Everywhere hurts but I think I’d know if I’d been raped. _

_ And I know I’d scent if he were truly a danger to me, because I’ve smelled that threat on betas before. _

_ He doesn’t smell like a threat. _

_ He smells...great. Better than anyone I’ve ever met. _

The alpha grabbed a thick branch, poked at the fire, sent a cloud of sparks soaring upward like tiny fireworks. Castiel watched, wary, feeling increasingly absurd for being wary, as the alpha prepped the fish, cleared a spot for them amidst the glowing embers, and set them to quickly roast. The man worked methodically, squatting, moving easily in the awkward position. How strong must he be, how used to living like this, how experienced at foraging and making do, to make the physically challenging look so effortlessly?

Flashes of the earlier fight - had it been hours, days, weeks since then? - came back to Castiel in disjointed snatches. This man had fought to protect Castiel, had kept him safe, had ministered to his injuries...

...saved him, at least twice, maybe more times...

...and Castiel mistrusted him?

_ But he's an alpha. That’s what alphas do! _

Castiel didn't feel violated, didn't feel used, didn’t feel in danger.

He felt...safe. Protected. Cared for.

Would Castiel have done as much for an injured stranger?

Would Castiel have done as much for anyone, stranger or not?

_ Maybe for my brother, as Gabriel would for me. But for no one else. _

"What's your name?" Castiel asked, hoarse and reedy, jaw aching with the effort of forming words. The alpha startled, yelped as a flame licked at his hand, tumbled back on his butt. Rubbing his behind, the alpha shot Castiel a disgruntled look, rescued one of the fish from the ashes where it had fallen, and returned to his cooking.

He worked in silence.

Castiel watched in silence.

The fish crackled and hissed, liquid cooking off, unpleasant smell transforming into an appealing aroma of roasted meat. Castiel's mouth watered. He couldn't guess when he'd last eaten, but his view of his own bared chest showed he'd lost enough weight that his lower ribs poked out and his muscles had lost their tone. One by one, the mound of raw fish grew smaller, the pile of cooked bigger. The orange light picked out the man's cut features. Stubble and smudges of dirt marred his cheeks, a thin sheen of sweat making him seem to glow. His eyes reflected the light to shine gorgeous and gold.

_ Gorgeous? No! They're gold because he's an alpha, and he's dangerous - I know he's dangerous, I've seen the violence he's capable of _ !

_ Yes. Violence he engaged in to protect me. _

_ And why protect me? So he could keep me for himself! _

_ That's just an assumption. And his very existence proves many of my assumptions, many of the things that "everyone knows" about alphas, aren't true. _

_ He's not a mindless beast. _

_ He is clearly educated, intelligent, and capable. _

_ He speaks English. _

_ He's compassionate, kind, self-sacrificing. _

_ He must be one of those who's families hoped they'd present beta, or not present at all, despite evidence to the contrary - he must have been raised in civilization, instead of being abandoned in Purgatory as an infant. _

_...and...for the first time...I wonder if maybe they weren't right to do that... _

_...because this man...unlike those poor, pitiful creatures he repelled...he's not a monster. _

"Dean," the alpha said abruptly into the silence, taking up the last fish and shoving it into the heat. He glanced at Castiel, glowered, turned back to his work. "My name is Dean."

Dean _ is not a monster. _

"I'm Castiel," murmured Castiel. His mouth was difficult to open, a pall settling over his already-dulled senses. He stifled a yawn, barely, his stomach rumbling in expectation of the cooked fish.

Dean looked back to him, broke into a half-smile, and chuckled. "Well, try to get some of this in you before you pass out again, 'kay? Won't matter that your wounds are healed if you fricken starve to death."

A protest, a retort, a defense, formed in Castiel's mind, only to quiet into the silence of the cave.

If Castiel hadn’t known that Dean was an alpha - if all Castiel knew was that this man had found him, saved him, treated him, succored him - what would Castiel say?

"Thank you." He could hardly make the sounds. Had his tongue always been so ungainly?

"Huh?" Cooked fish broke apart in Dean's skilled hands, and he moved to Castiel's side.

"Thank you," Castiel repeated. God, Dean was gorgeous when he smiled,  _ really _ smiled, eyes twinkling, body language relaxed and at ease. 

"Yeah, whatever," he grunted dismissively, but the smile remained, and Castiel concentrated and managed to spread his lips in return. "Eat up." He placed a shred of fish on Castiel's lips. "We gotta get you better - it won't be safe here for long."

Obedient, Castiel used his tongue to sweep the meat into his mouth. It was bland, a little slimy still, but it was food, for him, given with nothing asked in return. As Castiel accepted his situation, accepted how wrong everything he knew about alphas was, accepted that he needed this help, he nearly wept with how grateful he was. 

“Thank you,” he whispered between every choked-down bite.

He needed to heal.

Because he was  _ sure _ Dean was right.

No matter how...normal...Dean seemed, this was still an alpha sanctuary. Castiel had seen how dangerous it was, seen the contrast between Dean and Benny and the feral, wrecked dregs of mankind they'd fought off.

And Castiel was an omega, the only omega, in the entire domain.

For him, for anyone who stayed by his side, no place in purgatory would be safe for long.


	2. Chapter 2

Life settled into a strange rhythm. There was no recognizing the passage of time within the cave, no pattern in the coming and going of the two alphas, but the ebb and flow of their days came to feel familiar. Castiel woke up alone, or with Dean at his side, or with Benny nearby using a rock to refine some tool. Castiel would sit, or he'd watch, or he'd stare into the fire. He'd eat when one of the alphas made something, drink sour water when they held a stone cup to his lips, choke down bitter medicine when his pain grew too excruciating. He’d curl up and fall asleep, or he’d watch until he drifted into quiet oblivion, or he'd blink, and everything would be different - the fire out, or just lit; a different alpha in the cavern; a new smell or a strange chill or, or, or. He lost minutes, hours, drifting between wakefulness and sleep.  Dean was there more often than Benny, always scruffy, always wary, always working; at some point, he acquired a cut, angry and red, over his brow, but he seemed indifferent to the injury, focused on treating Castiel.

Castiel made sure he said “thank you” every time he was capable of it.

Dean always brushed him off.

Little by little, they learned about each other.

"Where you from?" Dean broached one time, and so Castiel told him about Chicago, and Dean spoke reluctantly, feelingly, about growing up in Kansas until he hit puberty, and Benny chimed in to talk about Nawlins. It wasn't until after Castiel dozed off mid-conversation and awoke hours later that he realized that Benny meant New Orleans.

"Think you can fly us outta here?" Dean grumbled another time, moving with a hesitancy and stiffness that suggested unseen injuries.

"Judging by the state of my propeller?" said Castiel dryly, waving a negligent hand at the airplane pieces still resting across the cavern. "No. Never."

"What brought a city boy like you, pretty little omega, out to our neck of the woods?" Benny drawled later - though Castiel wasn't sure how much later, wasn't sure if he'd slept or not. A flare of nerves tensed Castiel, sent pain cascading down his left side, and he groaned and shifted in a vain effort to find a more comfortable position.  

"Maybe let's keep the 'pretty omega' talk to a minimum?" suggested Dean mildly. Castiel hadn't even realized Dean was there; he rose from the shadows, stepped into the light, eyes narrowed with an angry glare toward his friend. A tang in the air stung at Castiel's nose, a shift in Dean's usual mellow, woody smell. Castiel's nerves ratcheted up another notch.  His chest pinched, breaths rushing from him in pained gasps. 

_ Relax, relax, they're not like I think, they're not going to hurt me.  _

"Benny, how's that next dose coming along?"

Tension dilated seconds to feel like minutes as Castiel waited for violence to break out between the two aggressive alphas, for one of the alphas to come at him, for any of a hundred barely-formed fears to come to fruition.

Benny caught Dean’s eye, shrugged, seemingly untroubled. "Gonna be...maybe 10 minutes?" Benny replied, bending farther over his work.

_ Please...no... _ Castiel gritted his teeth, tears beading at the corners of his eyes, not even sure what he feared, what he was begging he be spared. He wasn't afraid of Benny, wasn't afraid of Dean - he  _ wasn't _ \- but memories haunted him, of his parents objecting to his decision to learn to fly, of his beta classmates laughing and scenting him, disdain evident. He'd had so much to prove, had proven so much, and still he'd had to take this damn challenge, to fly around the world solo, to show that he was as good as any beta, as brave as those he'd gone to school with.

_ No - braver. It's never enough to be  _ as _ good, I always had to be better, had to be so much better to get the same treatment they got. And still-- _

"Whoa, calm down." Dean's voice was a balm to his spiraling thoughts, his scent blanketing Castiel and easing him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he inhaled as deeply as he could. "We're gonna get you back home, safe and sound, promise."

_ Why? Why promise that? Why help me? I don't understand. _

He opened his eyes once more to see Dean above him, blocking his view of the fire, of Benny, of the cave, of the entire rest of the world. 

He smelled nice.

He looked nice.

He...was nice.

_ He can't be nice. He's an alpha. _

_ Stow the bull, Castiel. _

_ I like him. _

_ And it's okay that I like him. _

"Thank you," he said. There was so much more on the tip of his tongue, so much more he wanted to explain. Did Dean know the effect he had? Did he care that he brought Castiel a peace he'd never felt with any one in his family, any of his classmates, and of his boyfriends? Did he...

_ Boyfriends? Why would I compare Dean to past people I’ve had a relationship with? _

_ We  _ don’t  _ have a relationship, that’s part of what makes him so remarkable - I was told alphas were insatiable sexual predators, yet here they are, respecting my autonomy, caring for me without violating me, asking nothing in return. _

_ How can these men be alphas? _

His family, colleagues, teachers, everyone always said that, once upon a time, omegas mated with alphas, and gave birth to betas, and that betas mated with each other and gave birth to omegas and alphas, and occasionally betas.

_ Did people like him once pair with people like me? _

_ Can I believe literally anything I've been taught about our history? _

_...are alphas truly wolves? _

"If you two are done makin' eyes at each other, some of us got actual work to do," said Benny, chuckling. Dean startled back so suddenly he tumbled onto his rear end. God, he was cute when he did that.

_...can alphas truly be cute? _

"Right," muttered Dean. "Sorry. I got...I gotta...I'm-a do...something."

And he bolted toward the mouth of the cave.

"Is he okay?" Castiel asked, staring toward where Dean's shadow had merged with the darkness.

Benny hummed a noncommittal response. Confused, Castiel watched Benny approach with his improvised mortar and pestle, the now-familiar scent of the willow bark medicine mingling with his own swampy musk aroma, like a marsh - or a bayou, maybe? - after a storm.

Settling beside Castiel, Benny lifted the pestle to Castiel's mouth. "Open wide," he suggested.

Castiel had so many questions.

The medicine would put him to sleep, it always did, and the moment would pass, and he'd never get the chance to ask any of them.

With an aching sigh, Castiel obeyed, swallowing the thick paste with difficulty, letting the peace it offered wash over him.

Some questions were better left unasked.

* * *

Endless days of incapacity finally gave way to slow, sudden bursts of improvement. One day, with help, Castiel could sit up. Days later, he could stand, move around the cave, help with the chores in small ways. Still later, he could stay awake for hours, could focus, could move. His left arm was still useless, the bones too damaged to heal well with what care was available to them, but his legs obeyed him, his chest ceased to ache, his thoughts cleared. The cave was strangely comfortable, though Dean and Benny urging him to ever greater exertion was a constant reminder of the dangers he got to ignore only because they kept the threats at bay.

His first walk outside was an explicit reminder of the dangers. The sultry summer air stank, heavy with decay, and corpses were mounted on the trees surrounding the cave mouth, a warning to any who came, any who caught that fetid scent: stay away. Death waits here.

"The ferals," Dean explained tersely, waving the smell from his nose. Outside the sanctuary of the cavern, he was like a different man - tense, powerful, wary. His scent stank a warning that had Castiel's hackles up, made him want to run and hide, but running was still beyond Castiel’s abilities, and besides, no matter how he smelled Castiel had no need to flee from Dean. A scythe improvised from a branch and a bone was held ready in Dean's hands, his head always moving, eyes darting toward every movement. "There are two types of people in purgatory. Folks like me and Benny - and we are few and far between - and the ferals."

"Then I'm very lucky I met you," replied Castiel gravely. Dean started and turned a wide-eyed look toward Castiel. Whatever reply he'd expected, it had certainly not been that.

"Yeah. Well. Don't count your chickens until we're not fuckin' dead tomorrow."

"What do chickens have to do with anything?"

"Just...don't keep sayin' stuff that makes me wonder why I bothered saving your ass," grumbled Dean. Castiel quirked his head toward him. 

"I'm aware that saving me has caused you and Benny a great deal of bother, and I'm sorry for that, and profoundly appreciative, and--"

"No," interrupted Dean harshly. Castiel blinked. "That's not why...look, I had a choice - I could save you, hurt as you were, or I could put you outta your misery. I couldn't ask if you wanted to die. I couldn't...just...I had to decide, ya know?"

"I...don't," Castiel shook his head. "Do you regret your decision?"

"No," mumbled Dean. "But I...I mean--"

Castiel's ankle twisted, his leg gave out, and he stumbled to his knee. Dean reacted instantly, catching him, supporting him, powerful and dependable and...

...perfect...

_...did I really just think that? _

"If..." Helping Castiel up, Dean heaved a troubled sigh. "If the ferals catch you, you'll wish you were dead, and knowing them...I doubt they'll ever make it that easy for you. An omega? Here? In their clutches? I shoulda...shoulda...but you were...are…” He made a vague, meaningless gesture toward Castiel. “...so I..." Trying to get his balance, Castiel relied on the sure strength of Dean's arm, the stability of his stature and posture. "Do ya get what I'm saying?"

"Honestly?" said Castiel. Dean nodded, strangely vulnerable and earnest. "No, I don’t have the least clue. I'm glad I'm alive, and I'm glad I met you. And Benny, of course. While being caught by these...ferals...would likely be as terrible as you fear, your efforts have kept me safe. I believe in you, and trust you, and I'm not sure why you feel the need to apologize for your  _ truly _ remarkable efforts on my behalf. Perhaps if you could explain your concerns?"

The question hung in the heavy, humid air, until Dean gave a single sharp shake of his head, grabbed Castiel's arm, and steered them forcibly back toward the cave. They walked in silence, Castiel increasingly leaning on Dean as he grew more fatigued. Not until the glorious chill of the shadowed depths enveloped them did Dean speak again, expression lost in the darkness.

"I was selfish," whispered Dean, the confines amplifying and disembodying his voice eerily. "I saw an angel fall from the sky, and thought...if I can rescue him, if I can save him, maybe I've got a shred of a chance of gettin' the fuck outta this shit hole. Thought...maybe you're my ticket back to Kansas, or to wherever, anywhere other than here, even a different sanctuary couldn’t be as bad as…” He sighed. “You were my chance to show not all alphas are animals. My opportunity.  _ My _ hopes.  _ My _ goals. Me, me, me. Didn't give a rat's ass about you. Didn't even treat you like a person, not really. Proved I was exactly what everyone said I was when I was a kid. And now..."

The silence in the darkness was absolute, might have gone on forever, might have lasted only a second.

"...when I think about what'll happen to you if they get their filthy paws on you...I'm sorry, Cas. I'm so,  _ so _ sorry."

"You don't owe me an apology, Dean."

"I do, though!" Dean protested, desperation giving his voice an unpleasant edge that oozed like slime down Castiel's aching back. "I--"

"Listen," Castiel interrupted. "Whatever your motivations, you saved my life. And I know that should the worst happen - if I get taken - it will be  _ despite _ your best efforts. If I get taken, it will only because you've fallen, because you and Benny have both died in my defense. How can you call yourself selfish, when you've pledged your life to my defense?"

"That's not what...I mean..." Dean sighed again. "It sounds all noble when you put it that way."

"Yes. It does."

"Shaddap," Dean snapped, stalking down the tunnel to the cave. 

Castiel smiled after him. 

Dean was adorable. And smart. And brave. And noble. And gorgeous. 

And yeah, Castiel was interested. 

And he definitely didn't think Dean deserved to be confined to an alpha "sanctuary."

He was starting to wonder if  _ anyone _ should be convinced to this hell hole. If raising an alpha in society resulted in someone like Dean, and abandoning them resulted in the ferals...

"Hey, Dean?" he called, placing a hand on the tunnel wall for support and to guide him through the darkness. 

"Yeah, Cas?"

If the rest of the world learned what Castiel had learned while in purgatory...

"How can I help you and Benny escape from here?"

... things would have to change right? 

"We can talk about that when you're better."

But even if Castiel was wrong, even if nothing changed...

"But--"

...at least Dean and Benny would be safe...

"Later!"

...and Dean would be with him.

* * *

 

Warm.

Hot.

The cave was largely insulated from the shifts in the summer weather beyond. It always felt cool inside, even when the fire blazed. 

Until now. 

Mumbling his discomfort incoherent into the air, Castiel shifted, shifted, shifted, seeking a comfortable position. 

His body was so  _ hot _ . 

His skin itched, worse than it had when his scabs were healing. Pressure bulged behind his eyes, twisted his guts, thickened his dick. 

So,  _ so _ hot. 

Brushing away the tattered leaves of his bed, Castiel rolled onto the stone, seeking coolness, seeking comfort, but he found none.

The stone was chilly.

But Castiel was sweltering.

_ Getting sick... getting a fever... unhygienic as this place is, miracle it didn't happen sooner... _

His functional hand groped over the ground, seeking his medicine, seeking...something?... seeking...

_...I need Dean... _

...seeking...

_...wait, what? _

...seeking...

His fingers brushed the fabric of his trousers, stiff with accumulated filth, teased over the hardness within.

He had an erection?

Now?!

The surprise lasted only until his fingers skimmed over his length again.

Of course he was hard.

It made perfect sense.

He was so hot.

And if Dean was here...?

Murmuring appreciation to the uncaring stone, Castiel brushed over himself, brushed over himself, brushed over himself, the pressure in his head building, matching the pleasure burgeoning in his dick.

He needed.

_ Wait. _

He froze, going stiff so suddenly that pain streaked electric through his mostly-healed wounds.

_ How long have I been here? _

His hand trembled with the need to resume stroking himself. 

_ How long since I took a suppressant? _

There was no delaying. He needed to touch, to rub, to relieve the pressure building in his head and stomach and testicles. He slid his zipper down, slipped his hand within, and gave his small dick a firm stroke from balls to leaking cock head. 

_ I'm in heat. _

With a groan, he rolled in on himself, grinding his forehead into the loose pebbles along the curve of the wall, yanking roughly, gloriously, at his cock.

_ No, this is bad, this is so bad - not here, not now. _

The new position hoisted his butt, exposed it to the cool...cool?...so hot!... air of the cave, chilling the slick he hadn't felt forming. 

_...this is bad... _

His shoulders pressed into the rocks. His injured arm lay useless at his side. His other hand worked, worked, worked, over his length, his hips bouncing to thrust into his grip. 

_...this is good... _

Pain jolted through his knees as he rocked, pleasure incandescent against his eyelids. 

_... this is so good, so good, too good, I'm in heat, I'm in trouble, I need - I need - I need - I-- _

"Oh, fuck," groaned a voice, deep and gruff, familiar but oh so new, as though Castiel had never heard him - never heard  _ Dean _ before.

_ Need him, need him - fuck me, Dean - fuck me, alpha. Please, please, please, please... _

"I gotta..." Dean groaned again. Castiel squirmed, seeking a vision of the handsome man, still stroking, stroking, stroking his dick. He flopped, awkward, to his side. Dean started at Castiel, wide eyed, frantically taking small, panting breaths.

Benny ghosted into sight in the shadows behind Dean. 

"Fuck," Benny echoed.

"Help me," Castiel whimpered. He hated how helpless he sounded, hated the heat incinerating him, loved the heat enveloping him, loved the matching heat flushing Dean's cheeks as Dean's scent burgeoned to fill the room.

"Benny, we--"

"No," interrupted Benny, gaze flicking between the two of them. "I’ll guard the cave. You got work to do."

"But--" Dean edged back toward the exit and Castiel moaned, the loss of the sight of him like having the skin torn from his face.

"... _ Dean _ ..." 

"He needs you, chere," Benny murmured. "And unless my nose deceives me, you need him."

"No - no, this is all wrong, this is..."

"Please, Dean!" Castiel's voice caught.

The scent of mesquite and citrus and polish flooded Castiel's nostrils and, with a gasp, Castiel splattered his palm with come.

"Oh," Dean breathed.

"I'll be outside." Benny's footsteps pattered over stone as he escaped at a run.

Castiel. was so.  _ hot _ .

His climax did nothing to sate him. Biting his lip to hold back tears, Castiel leaked helpless, choked off noises and continued to stroke himself. He could feel Dean's gaze, as heavy as the thick alpha scent in the air. A glimmer of shame, so far from dulling his arousal, drove him higher. Smearing tears on the stone beneath him, Castiel released his dribbling cock with a pained moan, got his elbows beneath him, and did something he'd once vowed he'd never, ever do, as he'd once vowed he'd never have another heat after his first.

He presented.

Dean's answering snarl raised goosebumps down Castiel's arms, prickled through his scalp, trailed like touch down his legs. His ass clenched at nothing, releasing slick to soak his boxer shorts. Hands landed on his hips, jerking him back, causing his elbow to crunch painfully on stone. His pants tore away, cool air like ice landing on his super heated skin.

"Please."

_ So hot. _

"Please, please, please, Dean."

_ So so hot. _

"Please, alpha."

_ So. Fucking. Hot. _

"Fuck me," breathed Dean.

_ No! _ With a pathetic, frightened moan, Castiel shimmied invitation. 

"I got you, Cas," Dean murmured. A hand curled, gentle, around Castiel's hip.

_ I hate this feeling, hate this ardor... _

"I'll take care of you."

_...but I don't hate that I need him. _

Warmth crowded Castiel's bared butt and thighs, Dean's skin soft and hot and comforting against him. 

"I know this isn't what you wanted from me..."

_...but it is, Dean, it is... _

"...I know how you feel about alphas..."

Hardness brushed against Castiel's crack and he hefted himself up invitingly.

"But I promise, I'll do my best to treat you as you deserve."

Slick seeped down Castiel's perineum.

"I'll do my best not to become an animal."

Dean lined up and pushed against Castiel's pucker.

"For you..."

Thick, hard dick pressed into Castiel's body...

"... I'll always do my best."

... and pressed...

"...oh, Cas..."

... and pressed...

"...Castiel..."

Fuck, there was so. damn. much. of Dean.

"I never imagined..."

Castiel wasn't a virgin - far from. 

"... never knew how good it would feel..."

But every rumor that spoke to the size of alpha dick didn't come close to the reality, the enormity, of Dean's cock.

Hips came to rest against Castiel's ass.

Dean speared him, swelled him, spread him inconceivably wide. Fear twisted with the heat and need and bliss lighting the cave incandescent, and Castiel burned.

"I don't know if I can..." Dean sounded helpless, hurt, fragile, weak with arousal, so unlike himself, and Castiel's fear evaporated.

Heat or no heat, Castiel wanted this.

And Dean was huge, and powerful, and an alpha...

"...Cas?"

...and would  _ never _ hurt him.

"Fuck me, alpha," Castiel grunted out, guttural, harsh, and ready.

And Dean obeyed.

The first rocking thrusts were slow, hesitant, all-consuming. Dean's dick tore him in two, spread him so wide, exposed him, satisfied him as no partner ever head. The hot need searing through every capillary finally dissipated. Castiel was filled, encompassed, friction firing every blissful synapse simultaneously. A gasp tore from Castiel as he rocked back to meet Dean's slow thrusts. Castiel’s vision of the cave dissolved into a million glittering motes. Castiel dissolved into a million glittering motes, like the sparks swirling up from the cavern fire. He clenched, seeking more, seeking harder, seeking  _ Dean _ . Dean gasped, cried out...and slammed forward. 

Castiel came again.

The heat within Castiel exploded like a damn supernova.

And Dean moved.

Castiel's reality narrowed to--

Thrust.

\--the sound of Dean's strained breaths, huffing with exertion--

Thrust.

\--the thickness of Dean's cock, fat within him--

Thrust.

\--the powerful grip of Dean's hands on his hips, pulling him back as Dean pushed forward--

Thrust.

\--the slick thick and oozing in his channel, gooping out to flow down his thighs, his knees, dampening the floor beneath him--

Thrust.

\--the brush of fabric on Castiel's back as Dean enveloped him--

Thrust.

\--the dampness of Dean's sweat as he rubbed his face on Castiel's neck, buried his nose in Castiel's scent point--

Thrust.

\--the softness of the kisses Dean painted over Castiel's neck, his spine, his back, his shoulders--

Thrust.

\--the tenderness--

Thrust.

\--the harshness--

Thrust.

\--the cacophony of feelings assaulting every sense, every nerve ending, every neuron of Castiel's brain--

Thrust.

\--and Castiel came--

Thrust.

\--and came--

Thrust.

\--and came apart.

Thrust.

And nothing.

* * *

Fever tinged Castiel's awareness, his heat quiescent but only for the moment. Someone...unmistakably Dean, his scent was everywhere, soothing and wonderful...crowded Castiel's back, hands petting gently down his bare chest.

"Is it always like that?" Dean whispered.

Gooey wetness coated Castiel's butt and thighs. He rubbed his legs together, delighted by, grossed out by, the slick slide. Dean murmured a moan into his neck, and only then did Castiel realize he was still stuffed full, still swollen around erection, still spread so wide by Dean's dick...

...by Dean's  _ knot _ , God, Dean was an alpha, an enormously endowed alpha, knotting him, coming and coming in him.

It should be frightening, disgusting, repulsive.

It was  _ spectacular _ .

"I don't know," Castiel rumbled, shivering through an aftershock. "This is my first time having sex during a heat."

Dean laughed wryly. "Me, too."

"I'm shocked," Castiel deadpanned. "You mean there are not many omegas to knot in purgatory?"

"Well, that too, but...well, if you've had sex  _ out _ of heat, you've got more basis for comparison than I do."

Shocked, Castiel twisted to get a partial glimpse of Dean's face. He was flushed, hair a mess of matted areas and shapeless tufts. He met Castiel's eyes then looked away...shyly?

"Thanks for, like, really awesomely popping my cherry?"

"Oh Dean, I'm sorry."

"Fuck that," grumbled Dean. "That was fricken fantastic. I never imagined..." He shook his head, smearing his lips over the back of Castiel's neck, tangling their hair together. "Thank you, Cas."

Castiel hummed a contented reply, wiggling back against Dean's cock. Dean choked out a pained sound and shuddered, and Castiel could swear he felt more come filling him.

"So...now what?" asked Dean. "Are we done? Am I gonna be a dad? How does this go?"

"Heat sex doesn't guarantee pregnancy," Castiel said. "And while my heat suppressant is a daily pill, one I haven’t taken since the crash, my birth control is a shot administered every three months. I should be fine until..." Another aftershock hummed through Castiel and he broke off with a soft moan. "I'm fine. No pregnancy. As for the rest..." Castiel relaxed back against Dean. "Heats usually last four or five days."

"Four or five  _ days _ ?" squeaked Dean.

"Was I unclear?"

"I'm gonna owe Benny so big time."

"We'll make it up to him when we escape purgatory."

"Like your confidence, Cas." Dean shifted, shifted them both, so Castiel lay half on his belly and Dean draped over his back. Laying his head on Castiel's shoulder, Dean sighed into relaxation. A hand pressed hard against Castiel's navel, kneading down, and damn if Castiel couldn't feel the cock lodged in him when Dean touched his belly. With a whimper, he clenched, shuddered, light flashing across his vision. Dean answered with a breathy, soft groan. 

"Shouldn't I be?" It was hard to hold onto the thread of conversation with Dean nudging Castiel's pelvis, urging him to tilt back. "You said I was your ticket outta here."

"Yeah, well." The kisses Dean feathered over Castiel's neck couldn't conceal his gruff, dismissive tone. "Hope springs something something."

"We're getting out of--" he broke off with a gasp as Dean rocked against him, knot tugging at his sensitive rim. Where Dean's palm rubbed at his belly, the pressure shifted, changed; Castiel's hand joined Dean's and he could feel the hardness moving through his own skin. His eyes slipped shut.

"Rest now," Dean whispered, so tender, such a constrast from the obscene, delightful way their bodies moved together. "Whatever happens - whatever happens - I swear I'll take care of you."

"I know you will..." It seemed unfathomable that Castiel could sleep with Dean fucking him...no, with Dean making such sweet love to him, but the rocking was so gentle, the contentment of being joined so new and sweet, that when his eyes slipped shut he drifted. "I know..." Dean's other hand wriggled free from between their bodies, brushed along Castiel's side, came to rest on his forehead, massaged his temples. "I believe in you, Dean."

"Oh, Cas..."

"We'll be okay." Serenity and pleasure combined, the hardness of the rock beneath him, the hardness of Dean against his back, the hardness of Dean within him, the only constants in a world the swayed with every pivot of Dean's hips. "I believe in you."

"Wow..." moaned Dean. "Oh, wow..."

"We're going to be okay."

And the best feeling of all was that he meant it, without qualification. Castiel drifted to sleep on a wave of contentment, his alpha... his Dean... sweet against his back. 

_ We're going to make everything okay. _

_ Somehow. _


	3. Chapter 3

"Brother! I need you!" Even made unearthly and distant by the echo of the tunnel, Benny's  urgency was patent. 

Dean went still. 

Castiel couldn't care less about Benny's urgency. Castiel  _ needed _ Dean. He clenched his ass, rocking back. He was so hot, so hot, he could swear he felt flames licking at his skin, searing his cheeks, incinerating his insides, radiating outward from where Dean penetrated him. 

Dean groaned.

"Cas, I gotta..." 

With a repressive snarl, Castiel shoved back against his alpha,  _ his _ dick - Dean didn't get to just  _ leave  _ and take what  _ belonged  _ to Castiel.

"Aw fuck, that's...Cas...Cas! Gotta--"

"Gotta fuck me!"

"Dean, brother!"

Dean jerked back. 

Castiel was empty. He sobbed, rocking against nothing. Dean couldn't leave now, he couldn't, Castiel needed, and-- "Dean!"

"I'm sorry." It was cold comfort that Dean did sound truly, profoundly sorry. Castiel flopped to his side, eyes on Dean as he danced into his pants, tucking that gorgeous, huge, essential dick away. "This is--" Dean glanced back at Castiel, cheeks an unhealthy red in the light of the dying fire. "I know you can't understand right now, but you'll be okay, and this is for you...for us..."

"Dean..." he whimpered pitifully.

Expression pinched with... sorrow? Pain? Regret?...Dean ducked back to where Castiel lay, placed a hasty kiss on his cheek, and bolted into the darkness of the tunnel.

"You'll be okay," shouted Dean's disembodied, not-too-distant voice. Castiel cried, reaching a weak arm toward where Dean had disappeared. "I'll be back soon."

A waft of sultry air carried Dean's scent down the hallway, a ghostly, tantalizing reminder of everything Castiel had been deprived of, and then he was gone.

And Castiel was alone.

And hot.

And empty.

And so, so,  _ so _ hot.

Castiel wailed.

"No...no!" 

Castiel reached out, found a divot in the rocks, dug his fingers in, and pulled. Flashbacks to his first day in purgatory rattled through him.

_ It hurts... _

The pain was different now than it had been then, but no less exquisite.

_...so hot... _

Castiel was alone, utterly alone, the air of the cave tortuously frigid over his flushed skin. 

_...help me... _

The rock beneath his naked skin abraded him, tore at his erection.

_...someone help me... _

A gust of smoke and wind blew air excruciatingly over him,  _ into _ him, his slick hole gaping after so long stretched around Dean's dick, around Dean's knot.

_...help me, Dean - please, help me… _

The exit tunnel stretched before him, endless, insurmountable, the cave as inescapable as an isolation ward.

_...so empty... _

With a despairing sob, Castiel rolled onto his back, rocking, helpless, unsated, insatiable.

_...I need...need... _

A wave of desperation surged through him, a pulse like an explosion detonating within his channel.

_...need... _

Hitching up his hips, he reached with his functional hand, groped his cock, fondled his balls, slid two...three...four fingers into his hole with ease.

_...needneedneed... _

It wasn't enough, nowhere near enough. He could simulate Dean's girth, but not the length plunging into him, not the friction over his prostate, not the bulge of Dean's knot distending him to the edge of agony.

_...needneedneedneedneedneedneed… _

Pathetic noises he scarce realized he made reverberated through the cavern, drowned out the whisper of distant battle, the crackle of the fire, the gritty rub of rock on rock. Castiel rocked down against his hand futilely, shimmying toward the fire with every inadequate thrust. There had to be something that he could use to stimulate himself, something better than his hand, something that could hold a candle to the bliss he felt when Dean speared him. He scanned the improvised accoutrements of Dean and Benny's lives, heat-addled brain finding new implications in every tool, every net, every phallic twig in the wood pile.

... _ wood...yes...wood _ …

The part of Castiel's brain still rational enough to recognize a potential dildo in the oleo before him meagerly protested that using a stick was a terrible idea -  _ it's too thin anyway, too fragile, too little, fucking splinters _ \- but he saw nothing better, and he needed -  _ fuck _ did he need. Still rocking against the woefully inadequate stimulation of his hand, Castiel writhed across the floor, seeking, seeking, seeking...

...there had to be one branch in the pile thick enough to satisfy him, smooth enough to not injure him...

...and Benny's mortar and pestle sat beside the fire.

Relief brought a grin to his face. Pulling his hand from within himself, biting his lip against a deprived cry, Castiel reached...reached...his gooey fingers slid over smooth stone...with a triumphant cry, he seized the pestle, twisted to his belly, reached behind himself and plunged the pestle into his ass.

His back arched toward the penetration, glorious though only a shadow of the rapture of being with Dean. Entire body committed to each thrust, he worked against the pestle, fucking back so hard that his slickened grip slid over the handle. It was so good,  _ so good _ , not nearly enough but still incredible. Sweat beaded over his face, dripped down his spine, soaked his hair. His legs kicked and heaved while supporting him, knocking the pile of sticks, scattering them to clatter across the room. The fire sparked as it was disturbed, glittering motes nearly as bright as the flashes of bliss dazzling Castiel's vision. Harder, harder, harder he rode his new toy, ecstasy and agony indistinguishable waves ricocheting through him. Nothing existed but the hard stone, his loose grip, his endlessly stimulated, endlessly desperate channel.

But he needed  _ more _ .

Exhaustion wracked his muscles, twinged through his mostly-healed wounds, knotted agony down his fractured arm. Without a partner, without an alpha - he couldn't believe a beta or an omega could have given him what he needed, couldn't believe anyone but Dean could give him what he needed - the pressure built and built in Castiel, fit to burst his gut with nausea and need. The pestle wasn't enough, would never be enough, but Castiel wouldn't stop, couldn't stop. His thrusts grew weaker, his grip limp as the pain of continuing grew too great, but he kept thrusting, kept needing, kept mewling out his distress to the unforgiving stone. Time dilated to endless, meaningless seconds, the glow against his eyelids growing dim as the stimulation grew less and less adequate, as the fire dimmed more and more to banked red embers.

_ What if Dean never comes back? _

Whimpering, face smeared with tears and mucus and spit made cold by the stone against which he wriggled his helpless desire, Castiel struggled to continue, struggled not to despair. He hadn't come since Dean left, couldn't come on his pathetic dildo when its bliss paled so compared to the glory of Dean's cock, but he needed to come, needed the fever roasting him to abate, needed...needed... _ needed… _

A growl snarled, guttural, loud in the cave's confines, and an icy wave of fear dowsed Castiel. He froze, trembling, hole clenching, hips barely wriggling for the stimulation he yet craved.

_ What if Dean has fallen? _

Twisting in an effort to see down the cave entrance, Castiel squinted through the dark but saw only a blurry, golden-red vision of ever-deeper, all-obscuring shadows. 

_ What if the ferals have come for me? _

Nails clicked against stone, vibrating against the ear he had pressed to the floor. Rough breaths panted into the still air; Castiel couldn't say if the hoarse sounds came from himself or the intruder.

_...can they give me what I need? _

Fear and desire and urgent, desperate pressure twisted through Castiel, sickened him. He couldn't move, paralyzed by the conflict roiling him. He didn't want just anyone, didn't want a stranger, didn't want Dean's killer to mount him, but he was so empty, so hot, so desperate - anyone, anything, would be better than how sick he felt.

... _ anything...give me anything...please... _

Something cold and wet snuffled at him, brushed over his cheek, nuzzled at the curve of his neck. Strands of hair stuck in the sweat coating Castiel's skin. A long, inhuman tongue swept over his cheek. The feral...the  _ creature _ , God, maybe alphas really did become wolves?...huffed hot, moist air over Castiel's skin. Shivering overtook Castiel, and he couldn't have said if terror or urgency made a greater part of his shaking. Another gust of air moistened Castiel's face, suffused his nose as he inhaled, and the unmistakable scent of smokey mesquite and tangy lime enveloped Castiel's senses.

_ Dean _ ! The name exploded through Castiel's mind and burst from his lips.

The creature...the alpha...the wolf... _ Dean _ , oh God it truly was Dean, he was alright, he'd come back, he would take care of Castiel, just as he'd promised...howled, the sound ricocheting and disforming to oblivion as it reverberated through the cave.

"Dean!"

With what strength Castiel could muster, he got his good arm under him, got his knees under him, hefted his butt, and presented.

Dean snuffled at Castiel's back, licked a trail through the sweat coating his skin, sniffing and sampling and teasing. Castiel shivered, straining with the effort of holding himself up, trembling with anticipation and need. He'd lost track of time, but he thought this was the third or fourth day of his heat. He was exhausted. He'd hardly had anything to eat or drink. His mostly-healed body degenerated, regressed, under the strain. He'd come more times than he could remember. He'd been fucked until he blacked out twice. He had no idea what would happen now, no idea what Dean could do to him, if Dean would even want to do  _ anything _ to him...

...but he  _ needed _ .

Pleading whimpers escaped Castiel as he hoisted himself in suggestion. Couldn't Dean hear his need, taste it on his skin, see it on his face, scent it in the air? Yet Dean moved slowly, sniffing his way along Castiel's skin, procrastinating, delaying, drawing out the agony of Castiel's fever.

"Please, Dean," he breathed.

Dean froze.

Castiel wept.

Wet nose nuzzled at Castiel's hip; shuddering at the burst of cold, he cried out, collapsed to the ground, struggled with all the strength he could muster to lift himself once more.

"Dean!" he keened.

The brush of fur left his skin.

_ What did I do wrong? _

_ Is it possible it's  _ not _ Dean? _

_ I don't care who it is,  _ what _ it is, they have to fill me, have to, have to, have to, have-- _

Tongue laved Castiel's crack, pressed over his pucker, slurped along his coccyx.

Castiel screamed.

The lick left, paws scuffing at the ground, and Castiel gasped, tried to get himself under control, shifted back, every movement beseeching. 

"Pl...ple... "

Dean's nose bumped Castiel's balls, shockingly cold. Tongue lapped at his dick, God, Castiel was hard, he was so focused on the slick in his channel he hardly spared a thought for his cock but he was aching, stiff, leaking pre-come. Kittenish licks drank up that liquid, teased more from him, as Castiel's ass clenched at nothing. Slick leaked from him so amply it beaded down his perineum, growing cold in the cave air. Castiel shivered and roasted by turns, heat fever unabated, body made frigid by the distance between him and his alpha. Rough sounds rolled in Dean's throat, rumbled through Castiel's body; Dean followed the trail of slick moisture, licking, licking, working his way toward Castiel's hole...

...pressing his way  _ into _ Castiel's hole...

The room evaporated in waves of heat.

Dean howled his satisfaction - Castiel howled his climax - as with a mind-shattering burst of rapture, Castiel came.

His muscles went lax.

His body went limp.

He anticipated the cold of the stone below striking his skin taut as if he had a sunburn, his cock spurting on the ground...

He never hit.

Paws seized his waist, heaved him up and back. Fur brushed Castiel's thighs as Dean thrust, thrust, thrust, hitting air, hitting skin, sliding along his crack, missing where Castiel needed him most. Something hard and sharp jabbed at Castiel with every bump of cock on flesh; he cried out with every thrust, with every miss, shimmying weakly in Dean's grip in a vain attempt to help. Snout smeared over Castiel's back, saliva dripping on him, Dean's scent filling his nostrils. Coming should have eased him, should have alleviated his heat, but he couldn't have felt more afire if he accidentally rolled into the blaze. He needed, needed,  _ needed _ , and Dean's aim  _ sucked _ , and--

"Fuck me, alpha!"

With a single harsh thrust, Dean's cock stuffed Castiel full.

It was impossible that Castiel came again.

He was pretty damn sure he came again - as sure as he could be of  _ anything _ with his senses completely overwhelmed, his body utterly overstimulated. If Dean recognized Castiel's distress, his behavior betrayed nothing. He pulled out roughly, thrust back in hard, picked up a punishing rhythm that ground Castiel's knees and face into the stone, left his arms flopping and limp as Dean's paws manhandled...doghandled?...Castiel into position.

Over the past days, Castiel had grown intimately acquainted with Dean's size, his strength, but now Dean moved differently, stimulated him differently, drove him wild in entirely new ways. His wolf cock was shorter, stubbier, fatter. Dean's thrusts were more violent, unrelenting, torture and ecstasy by turns against Castiel's overwrought channel. 

Every time Dean sank into him pushed him forward. The back of Castiel's eyelids painted incandescent. Bliss crested, pushing him up to the clouds, burying him in the depths of the mountain. Every time Dean pulled back, Castiel tried to follow him, to force Dean to remain with Castiel's body, sweaty skin tickled by a tangle of stringy fur, ass clenching as if he could force Dean to stay.

Castiel had had a lot of sex in his life, a lot of sex over the past few days, but he'd never experienced anything like this.

It was  _ glorious _ .

Tears of rapturous joy over-spilled his eyes as he tried to find the words to communicate how transcendentally good he felt. Dean snuffled and snorted, grunted and panted with effort, nipping at his shoulder, thrusting and thrusting and thrusting without pause, as mindless in his pursuit of penetration as Castiel was mindless in his need to be penetrated.

_ The moon's been full since I arrived, and he didn't shift then... _

A thrust punched into Castiel's body, stretching him wider. Dean's knot was swelling, fat, and pushing into Castiel's body was so difficult that Castiel could feel Dean shaking with the strain. He didn't slow, though, tugging his way out, shoving back in, taking what he craved from Castiel's limp, aching, oh-so-willing body.

... _ why did he change now? _

Orgasm built in Castiel, as powerful as a stampede, as unstoppable as an avalanche, as divine as destiny. Dean fucked him, thoroughly, enthusiastically, paws scrabbling at Castiel's belly, knot swelling, swelling, forcing in, tugging out, again and again and again.

... _ could he be _ ...

And then it caught. 

... _ what if Dean is in rut? _

Dean jerked back but couldn't withdraw, something in Castiel tearing, but there was no pain, no distress, only sublime satisfaction.

_ What if my heat triggered his rut, and that triggered this unspeakable, spectacular change? _

Dean howled again.

_ What if, as in the fables of old, we're meant to be mates - true mates? _

Castiel was  _ made _ for this.

_ Perfection.  _

Castiel tried to join Dean, to make a chorus of their voices, but his throat was wrecked, his body and mind  _ wrecked _ ; all he could do was keen out, high pitched and desperate. Come spurted within him, swelling him, so thick he could feel it sloshing and gushing. Dean's hips still worked forward, nudging Castiel over the rocks. Castiel rocked back against him pathetically, cock swaying, slapping his belly, dribbling thin release to combine with the mess of bodily fluids on the floor. A wet squelch accompanied Dean's heaving forward once again, and with a splash and a splurt come forced from Castiel's ass, sloughed down his legs, made his knees slide over the stone.

He felt so. insanely.  _ amazing _ .

Yet another climax eluded him. Moments passed in oblivion, fatigue growing so thick he lost seconds, lost sensations, lost everything except Dean's snout and paws and cock enveloping him. Pleas caught in his throat; he craved Dean's urgent thrusts, but with his knot caught Dean only bumped his ass, whimpering and panting and coming and coming and coming. 

"Please, Dean," Castiel wept. Dean whined concern, nuzzled at his back, shuddered through another climax, spurt another powerful stream of come. "Please..." Castiel's cock throbbed, his body throbbed, his heat fever pulsing like the sun. "...please..." He shuddered with need, shivered with chills and hot flashes, too weak to ride Dean's cock, too exhausted to take what he needed. "... _ please _ ..." A fog encompassed him, awareness lost to everything but the urgency coursing through his body. "...pl..."

A gentle lick swirled over his skin, tender, caring, achingly human.

Dean's hips thrust forward softly, slowly, forward and forward and forward.

Paws trembled with effort, with exhaustion, Dean as lost and overwhelmed as Castiel was.

Another lick lapped at Castiel's neck, over his scent point, their aromas melding into a beautiful, unique, new perfume that suffused Castiel's mouth and nose.

The urgency evaporates. 

The pressure surging within him ceased. 

The heat dulled.

The fever ebbed.

With a quiet, broken sound, Castiel's bliss crested, washed around him, washed through him, receded and left him replete.

And the world went dark.

* * *

Castiel's eyes popped open.

He couldn't have said what woke him; a moment's alarm dispelled as he took in his situation in a moment. The cave was grown familiar, grown strangely like home though Dean reminded him from time to time that they'd not be able to stay much longer now that Castiel was mobile. There was contentment in gazing around, seeing the ashes of the fire, the well-worn tools, and Dean lying sprawled asleep beside him. In the weeks of his recovery, in the days of his heat, Castiel had few enough times when he could relax and admire, and this was the first when Dean was human, unclad, still, and unaware.

Faint light from the dying fire limned Dean's sun-bronzed skin golden. Stubble mottled his cheeks, trim to his face in a perpetual five o'clock shadow though Castiel had seen no razor about the cave and was glad his omega hormones mostly repressed the growth of his own facial hair. Every slow inhale obscured Dean's fine musculature; every relaxed exhale revealed the curve of the pecs that bulked his breasts, the fine valleys and slopes of his abs, the perfect chiseled curves of his pelvis. His cock nestled, uncut, soft, flopped amidst a cloud of wiry hair, darker than the sun-kissed shade atop his head. Scars, some old and white, some raised and red, some jagged, some curved, some thin, some wide, crisscrossed his shoulders, torso, and thighs. Long limbs flopped around him, limp and at ease, corded and powerful. His clothes made a misshapen pillow beneath his head.

God, he was spectacular.

Pleasure, simple and pure, brought a serene smile to Castiel's face. For the moment they were safe, they were sated, they were together, and the world beyond the cave - the dangers of purgatory - seemed a million miles away.

Dean opened his eyes. Shimmering like sunlight sparkling through forest green, they went wide to see Castiel staring, then went gentle, a soft, beautiful smile gracing his weather-beaten face.

"Hey, Cas."

"Hello, Dean."

"How're you feeling?"

"Better." Experimentally, Castiel tried to push himself up, and managed only a mediocre sit-up before he sank back down. "My heat feels better, anyway. The rest of me..." He ground an awkward half-shrug into the cave floor.

"Good. I'm..." Dean heaved a sigh. "That's really good. Man, I am so fucking sorry."

Castiel blinked bafflement at him.

"Like, utterly, totally, thoroughly, gobsmackingly sorry."

"Gob...smacking...ly? I don't believe that's a word, Dean."

"That's it? That's all you got to say?"

"What should I say?"

"Fuck if I know - 'You should be sorry you fucker?' 'Apology accepted?' 'Never touch me again you son of a bitch?' Any fucking kinda reaction at all?" Dean sounded...angry?...that Castiel wasn't angry.

Castiel was beyond confused. "Why are you sorry, Dean?"

Dean's gape-mouthed expression, wide-eyed and agog, could have been the photograph beside the dictionary definition of "gobsmacked." Castiel had a pretty good idea what the adverbial form must mean, now.

"Uh. You went into heat. I fucked your brains out. I went into rut. I wolfed out. I fucked your brains out a whole fuckton more."

"And...?"

"...and?!"

"You've stated a factual description of the events of the past few days but I still fail to see why you're sorry."

"Because you're an omega! And I'm an alpha! And what I did to you was, like, the fricken definition of dubious consent. Didn't you learn anything in sex ed?"

"I learned a great deal in sex ed, all of it agonizingly dull and utterly irrelevant to our current situation. Unlike the last few days, during which what  _ we _ did to  _ each other, together _ , was...extremely stimulating."

"You still in heat?" Dean asked suspiciously. Castiel shook his head; at least he thought the hormonal storm was passed. He felt normal enough, aside from the exhaustion and muscle aches. "So...what...you're fucking with me? You're turning this into some bizarre-ass joke? You gotta see that what I did was seriously fucked up."

"No." With effort Castiel pushed himself up, crawled beside Dean, sat cross legged and cupped Dean's face in his hands. Stubble tickled Castiel's palms. Chill sweat and a tremulous heartbeat spoke to the fear behind Dean's bravado. "You did nothing wrong, Dean - nothing more wrong than what I did, at least."

"But Cas--"

"But nothing." A muscle twinged in Castiel's rim. "Okay, butts  _ were _ involved, so butt  _ something _ , but that's beside the point. Heats are challenging in the best of circumstances, and this was far from the best of circumstances. I can only assure you now, in retrospect, could I have, I would have explicitly consented to everything we did together - yes,  _ everything _ , Dean - and, in light of your rut depriving you of your own evaluative faculties, hope that you feel the same. I am very sorry for my own behavior."

Dean goggled at him.

"I...I...I  _ wolf fucked _ you! That's not even in the same universe as okay."

"You did transform to canine form and mount me, yes, but I assure you it was...very very much better than okay.  _ Extremely _ okay. In fact." By the time he stuttered out the last word, Castiel was flushed crimson with shame, unable to meet Dean's eyes. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Maybe what happened between them  _ should _ bother him. But it didn't, it hadn't, and pretending to offense he didn't feel was pointless. "I'd, um, I'd like to do it again sometime. If you're amenable."

Dean surged up from the floor, smashed their faces together, knocked their noses, smeared lips over lips. He tasted exquisite, like tangy barbecue and cool lemonade; Castiel's own white bread, boring scent took on new dimension, breadth, and wonder as their saliva mingled, their taste coalesced, and together they formed a banquet. Dean kissed him, and kissed him, lips shifting, heads turning, mouths moving together and apart, tongue flicking against palate and teeth and tongue, and hell if maybe Castiel's heat wasn't still lingering because his cock stirred and his blood simmered. Memories of how it felt when Dean filled him whispered tantalizing promises in his mind, promises that Dean's roving hands seemed intent on fulfilling, and--

"Again?" Benny's drawl interrupted.

Dean tumbled back from Castiel, breathing hard, cock poking up at half-mast between his legs, and though his lowered gaze spoke to embarrassment, his smirk was pure lascivious delight.

"Next time I'll put a sock on the door," Dean promised flippantly.

"May not ever be a next time," said Benny. Castiel looked confusion to Dean, and Dean quirked a questioning eyebrow at Benny. "Come see. But maybe, ya know, pants, first."

With a smile and a shake of his head, Benny left Dean to hastily don his clothes. Castiel looked around for his own trousers, but his hopes were low; sure enough, his vague recollections of the start of his heat spoke true. The legs of his pants were intact, the crotch still buttoned and zipped, and the entire pant's seat was a tatter of cloth strips and billowing threads. 

"You ready Ca...oh," Dean sighed, taking in the damage. "Fuck. Sorry about that."

"Stop apologizing," snapped Castiel, more harshly than he meant to. "I can get new pants."

"Oh right," Dean rolled his eyes, "we'll just take a stroll down to the Sears Roebuck...no, city boy like you? Probably Macy's, geeze...and buy you a fresh clean pair. Do you have any idea how hard intact clothing is to come by in purgatory? So. I'm sorry. You can at least let me be sorry for  _ that _ ."

"We'll figure something out."

"Yeah..." Dean heaved a troubled sigh, gaze flicking toward the cave entrance. Strangely mechanical sounds echoed down the tunnel's length, presumably something Benny was working on - the wreckage of Castiel's plane, perhaps, or... "You coming?"

Right.

Castiel was supposed to stand.

And walk.

Heck, merely moving seemed a mountain to high for him to surmount. Closing his eyes, trying to keep calm, he planted his right hand on the stone floor, rolled onto his knees, pushed up...

...and got exactly nowhere.

"Oh, Cas..." breathed Dean, troubled worry thick in his voice.

"I'm fine." The lie was flimsy, made flimsier as his elbow gave way and he barely stopped short of crashing his chin against the ground. "I'll be fine."

"Let's get you up, and see what the hell Benny thinks is so important. It better be worth it." Powerful hands circled beneath Castiel's armpits and over his shoulders and Dean pulled, propping Castiel up, supporting him as incrementally he straightened, rose, got unsteady legs beneath him. Cold air drafted against his thighs and ticked his dick. Hard stone ached against the bared soles of his feet. His shoes hadn't survived the crash, even the bandages made from his shirt now too worn to last. Muttering unhappily, Dean grabbed his leather jacket from the ground, wrapped it around Castiel's hips and knotted it in place. The back draped over his bare butt, the dangling arms barely concealing his masculinity. 

"It's better than nothing?" Dean offered with a sappy half-smile.

"Much better," Castiel replied with a single mock-solemn nod of his head.

"Asshole," muttered Dean.

"You didn't seem to mind my asshole yesterday," said Castiel blithely. 

Dean started, stared, then broke into helpless laughter. "You're...you're really something, Cas."

"I'm going to choose to take that as a compliment."

"You should," Dean laughed, then went instantly, totally serious. "You  _ really _ should. I, uh. I think you're great."

Abashed, Dean looked away, a bare toe fumbling at a pebble. Castiel had seen first year flight cadets look less embarrassed admitting a crush. 

_ Is it crazy that I think he really might be it for me? _

"Come on," Dean said gruffly, turning on a heel. "Let's go."

_ Then call me crazy, because truly... _

"Dean, I can't walk."

_...I can't conceive of being with anyone else ever again. _

"Oh. Right. Sorry. I'll just, uh..."

_ Christ almighty, how are we gonna make this work? _

"Stop. Apologizing."

Castiel held up his good arm as Dean moved to stand flush at his side, wrapped a hand around his waist, and hefted. With Dean supporting a at least half of his weight, he was able to shuffle one limping, tottering step after another as they slowly, slowly,  _ slowly _ climbed from the depths of the cave.

Absolute darkness enveloped them at first, the distance seeming far greater than it was in the face of Castiel's incapacity, but eventually the shadows grew gray and they rounded a bend to be greeted by the distance oval of light marking the exit. Shadows moved beyond, more than one person, surely. Dean muttered a curse, but listening it was clear: there was no battle, no imminent threat, only the hum of what Castiel thought was a motor, and the dulled echo of people talking, and...

...they stepped out into the dazzling gray of a cloudy late afternoon, and Castiel froze, astonished.

"Gabriel?"

His brother went stiff, straightened, turned from where he'd been tying the dangling ends of a rope ladder to a large tree trunk. Relief and delight were so unfamiliar in Gabriel's mild beta scent that he scarce smelled of himself. 

"Sam?" Only with Dean's exclamation did Castiel realize that Dean was amazed as well. A tall man futzing with another rope lead turned, wafting omega into the air, smokey aroma the only aspect of him that bore any familial resemblance to Dean.

"Cassie!" Gabriel dropped the rope and dashed over, patting at Castiel's cheeks, his shoulders, his chest, as if only by repeated touches could he convince himself Castiel was truly there. Every brush swayed Castiel as though he were a flag in the wind. "You look like shit!"

"Thanks," he replied dryly. "I feel like shit, as well."

"And you curse now? Geeze louise what the heck happened to you, Cas?"

The tall man strode over, scent tangy with pleasure; Dean shifted, started to step forward, stalled, started, stalled again, and with embarrassment Castiel realized that fear of Castiel's physical weakness restrained him from a reunion that would likely be as heartfelt as Castiel's was with Gabriel. With effort, Castiel pulled himself from Dean's side, supported himself, gave Dean a gentle nudge to indicate that he could go.

Two steps brought Dean and the tall omega into a rough embrace, each teary eyed, patting the shoulder of the other.

"So they are who they said they are," Benny said, though his calm tone and slow nod suggested he'd never doubted it. The rope ladder swayed in the breeze, leading up to a zeppelin hovering over the craggy hill face.

Craning his neck, Castiel lost his balance; his brother barely caught him before he tumbled.

"Like, seriously like utter shitfaced garbage, Cassie. Did you hit every damn branch on the way down during the plane crash?"

Castiel ignored the insults. He knew how Gabriel said  _ I love you, brother _ , better than anyone. "How did you do this?" he asked.

"Aw, I did little enough - he did most of the work," Gabriel gestured at the omega, a dopey, affectionate smile on his lips.

"And he is...?"

"Cas, this is my brother Sam," said Dean, teary-eyed, beaming with pride. Suddenly painfully aware that all he wore was a leather jacket, Castiel huddled closer to his brother, shielded himself as best he could, and offered a hand. "Sam - this is Castiel. My mate."

Castiel's jaw dropped.

Dean went crimson.

Gabriel's scent went dark with anger.

"Ignore Gabe," Sam suggested, voice a pleasing light baritone, taking Castiel's hand in a strong grip. He was apparently oblivious to the shift in everyone's demeanor, and that alone helped diffuse the sudden tension. Castiel stared bemusement at Dean, who shrugged and offered him a half smile. "This would have been impossible without the flight plan data and funding he provided. We-- wait, your what?"

_ Dean wants to be my mate? _

_ Do I want to be--? _

In the distance, something boomed.

All thought of reunion and Dean's slip of the tongue vanished as Castiel pivoted toward the sound. The lackadaisical way Gabriel and Sam turned was a sharp contrast to Dean and Benny's whip-fast rounding, both dropping into defensive stands.

_ Mate? _

"Let's save the mutual appreciation society for later," Benny suggested. "Every feral on the fucking island can probably see your blimp thing. We've gotta git."

_ I like the sound of that very much. _

His sharp tone drove home the dangers of the moment, and Sam and Gabriel rose to the challenge. There was no more chitchat, no more idle hugs. Moving in tandem as though they'd  long practiced this routine, the beta and the omega secured the ladder, waved Benny up, waved Dean up after.

"What about Cas?" demanded Dean.

Trees thrashed on the horizon, ululating calls echoing through the picturesque, deadly dangerous valley.

"What about him?" asked Gabriel.

"There's no way he can climb this!"

"Right," Gabriel smacked his forehead, adding an eloquent, "Fuck."

"I'll manage," said Castiel dubiously.

"You can't use your fucking arm!" Dean snapped. Fear dominated his scent, fear for Castiel's well being, certainly. In defense of himself and Benny, Dean was fearless.

"Don't be an idiot," Gabriel added, "or at least, don't be more of an idiot than you already were when you got yourself in this mess in the first place. Sam, climb up. Brochester here and I will untie the ladder, tie the ends to Castiel, and you and that beefy alpha guy and the crew can haul us up."

"What, so  _ you'll _ climb up with it untethered?" said Sam witheringly. Gabriel squawked a protest but another predatory cry, closer this time, cut him off.

"Get up there." Sam snarled. "Dean and I'll follow."

"But Cassie is  _ my _ \--"

" _ Now _ , Gabe."

Grumbling, Gabriel conceded, scrambling up the swaying length. As soon as his hands hit the flight deck, the brothers unmoored the ladder and ran to Castiel, looping the loose ends around his shoulders, between his legs, beneath his knees, securing him as thoroughly as they could with what length they had. 

A feral broke through the nearby cover of scrub brush with a roar.

"Climb!" Dean snarled. Rounding, he produced a stone blade as if by magic, placing himself between them and the feral.

"Are you crazy?" spluttered Sam. "Get your ass on the ladder!"

"I'm doing this for you," Dean called over his shoulder.

"You self-sacrificing jackass, they can haul all of us up!"

"Not fast enough." The words were nearly lost as Dean ducked an awkwardly swung arm, lashed out, drew a spurt of blood from a shallow wound to the feral's leg. More alphas raced from the foliage, shouting, shrieking, raging.

With the ropes tugging at him, trying to pull him up, Castiel strained to stay on the ground, forced himself to take a step, another step, another. 

"This is for--"

Castiel fell the last few feet separating them, wrapped his good arm and both legs around Dean, and locked his muscles.

"Cas?" 

Pain seared up his arm as the feral landed a blow, but he held fast. His feet left the ground, the zeppelin starting to rise. Looking up, squinting, he watched Benny roar and heave, red-faced with strain as he took up the ladder and hauled. Movement beyond him suggested others helping; Sam deftly climbed up the swaying ropes, reached the top, immediately took up the next rung and pulled.

The ground fell away beneath them.

The ferals shrieked ineffectual fury, leaping and clawing the air, stinking of rage as they recede, shrinking to insignificance as the distance grew.

Castiel's muscles shrieked with the effort of clutching Dean but he would.  _ not _ . let. go.

Dean held fast in return, arm shaking around Castiel's shoulders, nose pressed to Castiel's neck.

Castiel's back slammed into the flight deck.

Hands, so many hands, pulled him and Dean within.

He didn't let go.

Dean didn't let go.

"I woulda done it," Dean muttered. "I woulda stayed, so Benny and Sammy and everyone...and you, only you, Cas...so you coulda escaped that shitscape."

"I know you would have, Dean," Castiel murmured, brushing a tender hand through Dean's windswept hair. A helpless, lost sound burst from Dean's lips and he nuzzled closer to Castiel, scent him, teasing, smearing tears into Castiel's skin. "But I'm so glad you didn't have to."

"You two gonna lie there all day?" catcalled Gabriel.

"Come on, Dean," Castiel whispered, pushing himself with difficulty into a seated position. "My mate. Let's go change the world."

"Anything for you, Cas." Dean's reverence was exquisite, beautiful, perfect. "Anything for you."

_ Anything at all for my alpha, my mate...my Dean. _


End file.
